


now when i view the cemetery i don't see headstones, i see rows of engraved milk teeth

by orphan_account



Category: Adventures of Tintin (2011), Tintin (Comics), Tintin - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Christmas, Established Relationship, M/M, Miscarriage, Mpreg, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 03:30:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20203000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: for the prompt: tintin/haddock; mpreg; angst galore; christmas; memory lossCaptain Haddock just wants to make sure his and Tintin's first Christmas together is perfect. It nearly is. And then it turns out something is horribly wrong.





	now when i view the cemetery i don't see headstones, i see rows of engraved milk teeth

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warning: miscarriage  
tintin is also NOT underage in this fic; this is two consenting adults with an age difference, but ADULTS  
title from Los Campesinos

When they retired to Marlinspike more permanently and ostensibly ‘retired’ from their adventures, they had expected it to take a bit of readjusting. Tintin was a young adult who still craved an adventure from time to time, the Captain was an aging sea-dog with a thirst for adrenaline, and sometimes an adventure or a mystery cropped up at just the right time for them to disappear for the day and be back in time for tea. What perhaps both of them had expected but neither of them had discussed was the prospect of bad dreams. Or each other’s.

Falling into bed together had felt as natural as falling into the sea; domestic and far from the blazing forest fire they had expected love to take the shape of in order to consume them, rather a steady glow of smouldering embers that took up residence in the foundations of their hearts and were stoked as they went about their day to day living. The one disadvantage to sharing a bed every night was that when one did not sleep neither did the other- though the Captain was very much of the mind that he would rather be sleepless with Tintin that sleeping alone. Such was the case when his mind was dragged over broken glass to awaken in the dark hours of two am on Christmas morning. Tintin squirmed restlessly, muttering fragments of words that the Captain couldn’t make out. Snowy perked his head up and whined quietly. “Ssh,” the Captain mumbled to dog and boy alike. “’S just a dream, Tintin, you’re fine.”

Snowy’s head dropped back down. Tintin continued thrashing. “Tintin-“ just as he tried to reach across to shake him out of it, he twisted so sharply that his foot kicked the Captain hard in the stomach. “Ouch! Blistering barnacles!” he hissed, curling around the pain. “Save it for the criminals, next time, hey?” Inexplicably, it seemed his words reached something inside his ginger head, for Tintin’s fearful movements began to slow and his frantic murmurs grew further and further apart. When he was completely still he had shifted in such a position that he was curled even closer to him, with his head resting on the Captain’s shoulder, breathe even and sleeping deeply.

Despite himself, the Captain chucked softly. “That’s what I thought,” his gruff voice rumbled softly as his own eyes began to close.

***

Although they had discussed the Captain’s... unusual quirk of biology many times since they had started sleeping together, it had been so long without incident they both supposed he must be incapable of becoming pregnant. The fact that he had never experienced the monthly woes that women did led the doctor he had been taken to as a child to believe he was infertile, thus both the Captain (only little Archibald, then) and the doctor were sworn to secrecy and the secret never went beyond him, his parents or the nanny who had discovered it. His previous relationships, if they could be called that, were short and hurried affairs born of long voyages and the truth was easily hidden as he also had the anatomy to perform his duties as a _man_. All of this, in addition to the fact it was Tintin’s first Christmas at Marlinspike Hall, consequently meant it took the Captain a rather long time to put the pieces together.

If Tintin remembered the horrors he had dreamt the night before, the Captain could see no trace of it as they ate breakfast together, and he’d ample opportunity as they left the dining room and joined the staff in the hall to exchange gifts and goodwill. When he and Tintin had decorated the tree, on the fifth of the month and the Captain had switched the lights on, the look on Tintin’s face as the colours glowed over his tufted hair had been mesmerising. Technically, this was Tintin’s first ‘proper’ Christmas, seeing as how all the previous years either they had been committing some derring-do together or where part of the strange grey abyss that Tintin had no memory of before waking up in his apartment as the world’s boy-wonder one April day. Being his first Christmas, the Captain was determined not to let anything ruin it for him, which was why he ignored the back ache that had been plaguing him since waking up and made him wince as he rose from his seat at the table. The excitement rolling off Tintin was palpable and despite Christmas long having lost any marked fervour of either materialism or spiritualism to him the Captain couldn’t help but feel energized himself, enough to distract him from the way the pain was slowly extending to twist in his abdomen as well.

Tintin caught him by surprise as they made their way to the grand hall, tugging him round a corner out of the way of the others moving in the same direction as they. “Are you alright?” he asked, eyes wide and blue beneath his ginger quiff and his hand hot where it held the Captain’s. “You look pale.”

The Captain thought of Tintin’s face lighting up at the fairy lights and it was the easiest thing in the world to smile, “I’m fine, just a little tired. You _did_ keep me up last night, after all.” He winked and Tintin blushed and they joined the rest of the house in the hall that was already overflowing with Christmas cheer.

***

“Sir?” Nestor’s voice was tinged with urgency, but the Captain wouldn’t hold it against him. Really, it was perhaps the natural reaction upon discovering your employer, snuck away from the Yuletide festivities and doubled over in the empty corridor. Probably looking like a thrice-thrashed troglodyte, if how he felt was any indication. “Should I ring for the doctor, sir?”

“No!” he did not mean to sound quite so abrasive, but he had managed to hide the pain and cramps lancing through his stomach all day up until the point that they were halfway through dessert and blistering barnacles did it _hurt_. And he wouldn’t have been able to hide a doctor’s visit from Tintin. The Captain tried to straighten up to his full height, decided he wasn’t quite ready for that yet and bent in half again, cradling his unhappy midsection. There was something wet that had started to seep in his underwear and the inability to secrete himself in a bathroom and find out what was going on was setting him on edge. “No, Nestor, sorry, just... No doctors. _Please_.”

In a rustle of black suit, Nestor was beside him and speaking softer than before. “As you say, sir. Should I fetch Master Tintin?”

“Definitely no. Just- blasted parasites that _hurts_.”

Luckily, it was Nestor, so the whimper went uncommented on. “If I may make a suggestion, sir, it is said that a warm bath can be helpful in alleviating pain. Shall I?”

“Yes.” The Captain felt relief run through him. “Please, Nestor. But I shan’t take you away from the Christmas dinner- help me up the stairs and then I’ll sort myself out, there’s a good man.”

“If you’re certain, sir.”

It was slow-going, but Nestor was a miracle of a butler and sooner than he expected the Captain was drifting in and out of reality as he sat on the closed toilet seat, the sound of running water pulsing in his ears. A warm hand touched his elbow and he started, nearly head-butting Nestor in his surprise. “I shall tell anyone who asks you have taken a telephone call from your estranged uncle, sir. The bath is full and there’s a box of aspirin in the cabinet should you require it after your bath.” There was a pause. “You will ring if you have need of anything, won’t you sir?”

“Of course,” he agreed, both of them knowing full well it was a lie. “Thank you, Nestor. You’re a good man.” With that, he was alone in the bathroom. If he listened closely enough, he could hear the rest of the household celebrating two floors below him.

Understanding had been slow coming, but when he shucked off his trousers and was met by a mess of blood, he understood. “Oh” the Captain said quietly. He had not even realised he was pregnant. Quickly, he pulled off the rest of his clothes and climbed into the bath. The water quickly turned pink. Material he did not dare look at too closely was just visible, sinking with its heavier wait to the bottom of the tub as the stomach cramps and back pain slowly went away.

He couldn’t tell if his eyes were wet with tears or simply the steam of the hot water, or if the pain in his chest was guilt or grief. There was hardly any time at all between when he re-filled the tub and when the bleeding had slowed to a near-stop, so he couldn’t have been very far into the pregnancy at all. The Captain exhaled and it twisted into a sob and hunched over his knees, burying his face in his hands and refusing to move until his breath was even again. When he got out of the tub, his eyes weren’t even red. His first thought was to clear his clothes away, and hid them away to burn later, and then he thought about Tintin, and his quiff of ginger hair and his smile as the Christmas tree lit up and the way he had accidentally kicked him last night.

He was not going to tell Tintin. 

It felt so much like the wrong decision that instead of returning downstairs to rejoin the festivities and eggnog he went straight to bed, surprised when he lit a candle to find that his lover was already there asleep and it was almost midnight already. How long had he been in the bath?

“Mmm,” Tintin murmured in delight as the Captain crawled into bed beside him. It was a polar opposite from the frightened, twitchy way he had been only last night: there he was all elbows and terrified thrashing and now he was soft and languid, stretching himself to cover as much of the Captain’s larger frame as possible. “How was your Uncle Smithy?”

The clock ticked four times before he remembered the lie, “Oh. He’s fine- it was awkward, obviously. After not talking for all these years, but... nice. Thank you. How was dinner after I left?”

“Good,” he smiled and burrowed deeper into the covers, world outside the window looking like a Christmas card. “Missed you, though.”

“I missed you too,” the Captain agreed, thinking of Tintin. Just Tintin.

***

“Hmm, you don’t _feel _warm,” Tintin frowned, propped up on one elbow and with his other hand on the Captain’s forehead. When he had refused Tintin’s hands under his pyjama shirt, he had had to think quickly to come up with a plausible excuse and ‘sick’ was the only idea that came to mind. “Still, perhaps you ought to stay in bed today just in case.”

The Captain made a noise he hoped sounded like one of agreement and screwed his eyes shut tighter. Not all day- yesterday’s clothes needed burning, after all- but a morning in bed wouldn’t hurt. “Stay with me?” he asked, trying not to sound as if he was pleading though he _was_. “My stomach hurts.” It wasn’t, but it was yesterday and he could still feel the phantom pains every time he tried not to think about what had happened yesterday.

“_Of course_,” Tintin replied, so tenderly the Captain felt tears pricking his eyes. He was- once he was curled along his back, he even snaked his arm round and began rubbing circles into his stomach to try and chase away the ostensible ache. “There?” His hand was red-hot. Now the Captain _did_ feel sick.

“Yes. Thank you.”

A butterfly kiss on the bared strip of his shoulder blade, “It’s not a problem. I’m just glad this didn't come on until today- I’d have hated for you not to enjoy Christmas.”

Another noise of assent, then one of refusal when Tintin asked if he wanted him to go and find him some medicine, “Just- just stay. Please?” There was a disapproving ‘tut’ but he didn't move, or stop rubbing his stomach. The Captain tried to think of something- anything- to distract himself, “Did you at least enjoy yesterday?”

He cracked his eyes open just in time to see Tintin smile widely before launching into a story about something that had happened over Christmas dinner. As he fell asleep to the sound of Tintin’s pure delight, only one thought was running through his head: _I’ve made the right decision_.


End file.
